Kelly Oubre Jr. Adds to Sixers' Mounting Injury Issues with Elbow Sprain

The post-All-Star-break Sixers just cannot catch a break.

They were already without Paul George, who's serving a 25-game suspension for a violation of the NBA's anti-drug policy. Joel Embiid briefly returned from a shin issue that sidelined him for five games, only to suffer an oblique injury that has caused him to miss the Sixers' past six games. Tyrese Maxey is now out for at least three weeks due to a "tendon injury to the small finger on his right hand," the Sixers announced Tuesday.

And right as the NBA's 5 p.m. ET injury report dropped Wednesday, the Sixers had even more bad news to share.

"An MRI today revealed that Kelly Oubre Jr. suffered a sprain of the lateral collateral ligament in his left elbow," the team announced. "The initial injury occurred during last night’s game against Memphis.
"Oubre Jr. will be reevaluated in approximately two weeks. Further updates will be provided as appropriate."

It's beginning to feel like the injury-ravaged 2024-25 season all over again for the Sixers.

Which Sixers will step up in Oubre's absence?

With Oubre, Maxey, Embiid and George all sidelined, the Sixers are down four-fifths of their preferred starting lineup. Rookie VJ Edgecombe is the last man standing.

Oubre had a team-high 30 points and 12 rebounds in the Sixers' 139-129 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday, which was his first-ever 30-10 game. That got overshadowed by Cam Payne's , but Oubre has been a steadying force for the injury-ravaged Sixers over the past two years.

Until Embiid returns, the Sixers figure to be the Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes Show, featuring Payne in a microwave-scorer role off the bench.

Dominick Barlow has only two games this season with more than 14 points, so he doesn't appear equipped to scale up offensively in the way that the short-handed Sixers would need right now. Jabari Walker had a pair of 20-point games off the bench last week—which makes his limited role against Memphis that much more difficult to understand—but he could be an option for some offensive punch.

Trendon Watford and Adem Bona should also increase their scoring volume, and the Sixers might have to lean on Watford more as a play initiator as well. This could be Justin Edwards' chance to earn a consistent rotation role even when the Sixers are back closer to full strength, too.

Those last two paragraphs were a desperate attempt to put lipstick on a pig, though. The honest answer is that without four of their top five leading scorers, the Sixers are in deep, deep trouble. Their lone saving grace may be the state of the Eastern Conference playoff race.

Can the Bucks catch the Sixers in the standings?

At 35-30, the Sixers are currently sitting eighth in the East. They only have a one-game lead over the ninth-seeded Atlanta Hawks, who swept the season series with the Sixers and therefore have the tiebreaker over them.

The Detroit Pistons are going to do unspeakable things to the Sixers on Thursday, while the Hawks will pay host to the tanking rebuilding Brooklyn Nets. In all likelihood, the Hawks will leap over the Sixers as the No. 8 seed by the end of Thursday night.

Even if the Sixers do slip into the 9-10 matchup, they currently have a 7.5-game lead over the 11th-seeded Milwaukee Bucks with only 17 games left. They'd have to nosedive down the standings—and the Bucks would have to refuse to throw in the towel on their lost season—to be at risk of falling out of the postseason entirely.

After Thursday's game against the Pistons, the Sixers host the Brooklyn Nets and Portland Trail Blazers on a back-to-back before heading out on a three-game road trip to face the Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz. The Jazz nearly beat the short-handed Sixers last week, so those three games against the tanking teams aren't guaranteed wins, but they could offer a potential reprieve.

George will return from his suspension on March 25 against the Chicago Bulls, while Embiid is set to be re-evaluated this weekend. But for at least the next two weeks, the Sixers will be without all three of George, Maxey and Oubre.

So long, No. 6 seed. We hardly knew ye.

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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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